CANNES, May 24, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Superstar Brad Pitt has a habit of aiming high.
Before becoming one of the most recognizable faces in the world, Pitt worked from the ground up, moving from Missouri to Los Angeles to take acting lessons while supporting himself with hourly pay – dressed up as an El Pollo Loco chicken.
Decades later, Pitt, 47, told the Associated Press at the Cannes Film Festival this year that his decision to have a large family was just another part of the same all-or-nothing spirit.
“I know it seems extreme from the outside, but I’ve always kind of operated this way,” he says of his six children, three of them adopted, with partner Angelina Jolie. “When I know, I know, and why mess around?”
Pitt is not exactly the typical mascot for pro-family ideals – he abandoned his Christian upbringing and is a proponent of gay “marriage.” But he says that his experience observing a bustling, large family as a kid left a lifelong impression.
“I had a friend who had a big family when I was a kid,” he said. “I just loved the chaos around the breakfast table and the fighting and the ribbing, and the mom making pancakes for everyone or the dad making pancakes.
“And I just decided then if I was ever going to do it – this left some indelible mark on me – if I was ever going to do it, that’s the way I was going to do it.”